The Scotsman John Logie Baird invented television in the 1920s, by bringing together the work of some others, notably Paul Nipkow, who invented a spinning disk used to scan the image.

The first public demonstration of television was by John Logie Baird in Hastings, England in 1923. An official blue plaque marks the house where this took place. Hastings Museum hold various pieces of related correspondence. A further demonstration subsequently took place in a department store, Selfridges, in London England, by Mr Baird himself. This took place in 1925. The system was successful enough to become commercialized, and the BBC began the world's first regular television broadcasts, using the Baird system, in 1936. By 1939, there were over 20,000 TV sets in use in and around London. A year later, in 1940, Baird demonstrated a set which was capable of receiving colour pictures and stereo sound!

The problem with the Baird system is that it was mechanical in design, and so it was unreliable. For this reason, it was eventually superceded by a system based on Farnsworth's development of an electronic system.

So, in answer to the question, "When was television invented?", although many people had a hand in it, the best answer is probably that it was developed in the early twentieth century, but television service as we know it began in 1936.

The first concept of the television was a sketch done by a 14-year-old farm boy named Philo T. Farnsworth in 1922. On September 7, 1927, he finally created a television system that could not only display, but transmit signals between seperate rooms. (see above)